About
NuTrac Hemp has been innovating since 2019.
Here is our lab in action showing the process of taking hemp flower biomass to extract and distillate.
Mission
Quality
Our lab is a licensed food processing facility as well as approved for dietary supplement production. We are certified Organic through Where Food Comes From. Our commitment to quality has us working towards GMP certification.
Values
- Helping people find high quality natural wellness solutions.
- Providing the highest quality, cruelty free product that is tracked from the farm to the customer.
- Supporting local farmers by providing a fair price and a relationship built on trust, respect, and continuous learning and innovations.
- Providing a diverse workplace where people and ideas are respected and quality and safety are top priorities.
NuTrac Founders
Phil Louer is a multi-faceted business owner/operator in the New River Valley. As a longtime Class A Virginia residential contractor, he has built high quality, premium custom homes throughout the region and on Smith Mountain Lake. He is President of North American Gem Carvers, LLC, which provides worldwide representation for a consortium of renowned gem artists. Louer is active in the exploding hemp industry: in addition to being a co-founder of New River Extracts LLC DBA NuTrac Hemp, he is also a co-founder of The Wise Leaf, LLC, a retail outlet for premium hemp products, and a co-founder of Homestead Farms, LLC, a cultivator of premium hemp. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Bedford, VA.
Michael Soo, MD Born in Clinton, NC, the son of Physicians Dixie Lee Soo, MD and L Y Soo, MD. His mother is also from Clinton, NC and his father was originally from Jiangsu province and moved to NC to attend UNC Chapel Hill and then Wake Forest School of Medicine where he met Dixie.
After completing Undergraduate studies at Duke University and Medical School at Wake Forest University, Michael completed a neurology residency at the University of Pittsburgh, and a fellowship at Duke University. He is board certified in Neurology and has a subspecialty board certification in sleep medicine. He practiced neurology and sleep medicine in Durham NC for 22 years.
After a spiritual awakening event at a meditation retreat in Sept 2001, he began to study and pursue alternative healing systems including acupuncture, biofield energy therapy, Reiki, medical qigong and other modalities and systems. This was integrated into his neurology practice for some of his patients.
Further spiritual study, prayer and meditation led to further healing experiences, and led him to see the potential of plant medicine to work with the body naturally, as well as to potentially facilitate emotional and physical healing in the context of a holistic approach to health that includes not only physical health, but the importance of emotional and spiritual health and how they are intimately connected to physical and mental health. The conventional medical system did not allow for Dr Soo to continue to progress as a holistic practitioner, therefor he decided to leave mainstream medicine to further train and develop as a holistic healer and practitioner. He continues to apply a contemplative and holistic approach to health maintenance and healing, and to understand and elucidate the connection between the soul, emotions, the mind, and the physical body, and how this can apply to healthcare and wellness.
Dr Soo is a strong proponent of plant medicine and particularly the tremendous potential cannabis can be health and wellness, when applied properly.
As part of the NuTrac Hemp, Happy Llama Hemp Company and Skyline Botanical teams, he is involved in the formulations of the product line, and continues to follow the latest scientific developments in the field to produce a line of products of consistently high quality under the legal framework in Virginia.
He envisions a future in which plant medicine is better understood and accepted, and in which information about the healing properties of cannabis and other plant medicines is more readily available for a wide variety of conditions.
Luke Staengl studied Chemical, Mechanical, and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He has been the driving force behind several high technology environmental companies since 1979. He founded and served as chief executive officer of three companies involved in converting biomass to bio-fuels, fiber, feed and other high value products.
In this capacity, he has led and directed the design, construction and operation of several plants which produced fuel ethanol from agricultural and industrial wastes, using novel fermentation techniques and high rate anaerobic digesters to treat the resulting effluent. He helped develop technology which hydrolyzed wood wastes into fermentation feedstock and other high tech materials such as epoxies, carbon fibers, and resins. He co-founded the Bio-based Materials Center at Virginia Polytechnic Institute with Dr. Wolfgang Glasser.
Luke was founding member and served as President of the Virginia Ethanol Association for 8 years. He also served on the Board of Directors for the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) for several years. Later, he developed technologies to recover virgin grade glycols from antifreeze, and recover industrial alcohols, acetic acid, many other solvents and amines from waste streams, for Goodyear, Solvay, Fina Total, DuPont, Hercules, Dow, Abbott Labs, Hoechst Celanese, and others.
In 1991, Luke founded Pragmatic Environmental Solutions Company [PESCO] which focused on developing technologies to meet the increasing demand for scalable, reasonably priced, skid mounted solvent and oil recovery systems. As president of PESCO he has led it from modest beginnings to a company with international recognition in the field of used motor oil and solvent recovery technology
expertise over a period of 26 years. PESCO technology is used in recycling everything from acetone to
xylene and motor oil, in locations ranging from Australia, Africa, Viet Nam, Malaysia, the Middle East,
the USA and many other countries. He is often called on to fix problems in plants which have been
incorrectly designed and built. He lives with his wife in a beautiful home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
Current and Past Activities:
President and CEO of Pragmatic Environmental Solutions Company Inc.
President – PESCO BEAM Environmental Solutions Inc.
Director and Chief Technical Officer – OPS International
Director and Chief Technical Officer – OPS Africa Ltd.
Director and Chief Technical Officer – OPS Botswana Ltd.
Co-founder – Biobased Materials Center – Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Director – Commonwealth Bio-fuels Greensboro
Board Member and VP – SustainFloyd Inc.
Past Board Member of NORA (National Oil Recycling Association)
Past President & Founder of Floyd Agricultural Energy Corporation
Past President and Founder – Bio-Regional Energy Associates, Ltd. Inc
Past President and Founder – Virginia Ethanol Association
Past Board Member – Renewable Fuels Association
Past Board Member – Southeastern Regional Biomass Energy Program (SERBEP)
Past Member – SERBEP Grant Review Committee
John Emery is an experienced international consumer-sector executive who currently serves as the Managing Member of Stone Circle Holdings, a privately held company focused primarily on lifestyle real estate-related investment opportunities. He has also served as a senior advisor or board member of several high-growth companies. John previously served as CEO of Great Wolf Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:WOLF), a family entertainment resort company, where he led the company’s expansion to a nationally recognized brand and IPO. He was also President of Interstate Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE:IHR), a global independent hotel management company with more than 400 hotels. John is a frequent guest lecturer at several universities and is a graduate of Virginia Tech.
Brothers Keith and Mark Brankley own and run Brankley Farms, Inc. in Mecklenburg County near Skipwith, Virginia. With decades of experience farming tobacco, soybeans and other grains, they are now cultivating some of Virginia’s finest hemp. Together with their brother-in-law David Buchanan, owner of Turkey Ridge Farms, they farm 800+ acres of USDA-certified organic hemp and other crops in beautiful sandy loam. As partners in NRE, they assure a consistent and sustained supply of quality biomass.